“Two weeks, in fuckin’ Bruges. In a room like this? With you? No way!” – Day Four

(The quote is from the movie "In Bruges" with Colin Farrell for those interested…)

We decided to stay another night at our hotel in Brussels. The drive to Bruges was about an hour, highlighted by slightly overcast skies. What started out as a beautiful day, soon turned to a downpour for the
remainder of our afternoon. Bruges is an amazing canal-filled medieval city, and quite frankly, one of the favorite of places to which I have ever traveled.

The Minnewater — or Lovers Lake — has an interesting folklore around the historical romantic properties of drinking from the water and falling in love forever. The giant swans nearby are a figure of Bruges and almost keep watch over a group of simple houses called The Begiunage, which is now a monastery for the Benedictine sisters. This area is just outside the tourist traps and is lined with gorgeous green spaces — and a
solemn oath of silence.

Further into town, we rested in the Grote Markt  (and ate at some crappy fast food restaurant, but yeah, mayo fries). It seemed every new canal of cobbled street opened up to another amazing piece of architecture: The Church of Our Lady's spire is one of the world's tallest brick buildings and the medieval tower the Belfry, which was destroyed by fire three times and rebuilt.  Located at City Hall is the Basilica of the Holy Blood, originally constructed in the 12th century! The Provenciaal Hof is equally as breathtaking.

We really had a hard time with the rain and my pants were beyond ankle-soaked and we went through 3 umbrellas. To stay dry, we rented a horse-drawn carriage (with Kristy, the horse) to ride through town. The temps combined with the rain made it extremely chilly. Hilarious as it may be, we took pictures of the street signs to remember where we
parked the car, since each street and square all seemed vaguely similar.

I had a good laugh at chocolatier windows…

… and the 't Zand fountain symbolizing everything Bruges, where water came out a woman's nipple. I know, you can't take me anywhere. 

Thankfully, I took plenty of pictures in Bruges because later that night back in Brussels, my camera would break. Such a shitty, shitty thing to happen while on vacation (especially knowing I still have to see Paris), and I w
as plenty upset. I improvised with a couple gift shop-issued disposable cameras to fuel my picture-taking obsession. Of course, the quality is nothing remotely similar.

Back in Brussels, we had dinner at a french restaurant (both of us entirely weary of french food), and of course, are subjected to our first difficulty with not knowing the language. I eventually ordered some ham-and-cheese-with-egg over bread thing called a Croque Monsieur. After publicly
humiliating my boyfriend (we won't rehash it), and still fuming about my camera, we settled into bed early. Back the the hotel, I finally found the Mannekin Pis statue too. Unfortunately, I was not in the mood for any baby pee-pee jokes.

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